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V o l u m e 23 I s s u e 4C o m p u t i n g _ ___________________
M a c h i n e ______________S i m u l a t i o n April 2006 _
A r t i c l e I D :1〇 〇 6 - 9 3 4 8 ( 2006)04-0257-04
Design method of traffic 3D visual simulatio
n software
M e i F e n g
( Institute of Systems Engineering, Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084)
Abstract : In the current traffic simulation research, the application of virtual reality technology is o
ne of the hot spots and also one of the difficulties. The main contradiction is that both of them are bi
g consumers of hardware resources. Under the current mainstream PC configuration , traditional design met
hods cannot give full play to virtual reality technology. For this reason, the article proposes a new de
sign scheme of display module based on road section traffic statistics data, and on this basis, divides
the map into multiple PCs to process the virtual city and independently separates the display module, and
secondly approximates the simulation results on the basis of free traffic flow, etc. The method breaks t
hrough the bottleneck of the application of virtual reality technology in the traffic simulation researc
h on the computer hardware capability and network transmission capability, and completes the 3D visual s
imulation software based on the Paramics-WTK platform , which truly realizes the traffic simulation in the
virtual city environment.
Key words : traffic simulation ; virtual reality
; virtual city ; inte
lligent transportation
design Method for 3D _ vision Trafflc Simulation Platform
MEI Feng
(Research Inst, of System Science, Department of Automation of Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)
ABSTRACT : The application of Virtual Reality technologies in today's traffic simulation researches is one of the
hotspots as well as one of the difficulties. The antinomy is they both cost a great deal of hardware resources. Traditional
traffic simulation design method can't give VR enough interspaces. So the paper brings forward a new design method of
simulation display module which bases on link traffic flow statistics, and then helps to break through the PC hardware
limit as well as the net transport speed through splitting virtual city to separated zones ami re - approaching simulation
result, finally realizes a new virtual city traffic simulation software based on Paramics - WTK developing platform.
KEYWORDS : Urban traffic simulation; Virtual reality; Virtual city; ITS
iIntroduction _ m for many researchers and traffic managers
Due to the development of urban scale a to solve. The rapid development of computer
nd the improvement of our country's econom simulation technology provides a rapidly dev
ic strength, our country's transportation indus eloping platform for the research of compute
try has developed rapidly in recent years. It h r simulation and related technologies related
as brought about the rapid growth of vehicles to urban traffic. The current urban traffic sim
and the relatively insufficient development of ulation software has the characteristics of sc
urban roads and a series of traffic problems alability, controllability, optimization, safety,
arising therefrom. How to adopt scientific pla economy and so on [1] . It can describe the ba
nning and management methods to improve sic differences between various traffic entitie
the traffic conditions and enhance the city's t s in detail and reproduce the dynamic perfor
raffic capacity has become an urgent proble mance of urban road networks, so it has bec
维普资讯 http://www.cqvip.com
ome a very important research tool for more
and more traffic planning, management and
researchers.
Date received : 2005-03-07
In recent years, traffic simulation softwar
e has made great progress in simulation alg
orithms, realizing many traffic simulation alg
orithms, traffic flow statistics and traffic analy
sis methods under various platforms, which
greatly facilitates the research work of traffic
planning and management personnel. Howe
ver, due to technical limitations, the output in
terface and human-computer interaction inte
rface of many traffic simulation software are
not perfect, and the description of the output
interface is mostly rough. For example, traffi
c micro-simulation software almost all uses s
implified cuboids to represent vehicles, and
only uses different colors to distinguish vehic
le types; in the expression of urban environm
ent, most of the current simulation software c
an only achieve rough geometric expression
s. Light source settings, material design, etc.
are lacking, so it is impossible to produce a s
ufficiently detailed city model. Due to this limi
tation, it is impossible to realize the real repr
oduction and factual simulation of urban traffic by
traffic simulation software in details . At the s
ame time, in sharp contrast to this is the rapi
d development of computer graphics display
technology and virtual reality technology in r
ecent years. Java3D, WTK and other 3D software l
anguage packages are very mature. They ca
n not only provide complete and effective gra
phics functions for users to build 3D models,
but also support the calling of external model
s, so that various exquisite scenes can be co
nstructed more conveniently.
The main work of this paper is to try to c
ombine traditional traffic simulation software
with virtual
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Combining virtual reality technology to build 2 Brief introduction to the design of
traditional traffic simulation softwar
a new traffic simulation and graphic display p e visual module
latform, combining the powerful functions of
The graphics display module of the curre
many traffic simulation software for data proc
nt mainstream traffic simulation software gen
essing and analysis algorithms with rich grap
erally receives the real-time location informat
hic display and virtual reality to build a realist
ion and sign information of all vehicles in the
ic With intuitive display and strong human-co
digital simulation results according to the sim
mputer interaction ability, it can combine vari
ulation steps during operation, and then refre
ous means of sound, light and other element
shes the vehicle display information on the el
s to reproduce and simulate the urban traffic
ectronic map. [ 5] . This mode has the advanta
system in a panoramic view, so as to realize
ges of intuition and simple data processing o
the organic combination of macroscopic sim
f the display module. However, its disadvant
ulation and microscopic simulation of urban t
ages are: 1. the amount of data is huge, and
raffic system. Improve the functionality and q
the three-dimensional coordinate information
uality of traffic simulation software. From the
and identity information of all vehicles are re
perspective of virtual reality technology, it is
quired; 2. data transmission is frequent, and
not difficult to construct such a static urban s
to ensure the continuity of vehicle geometric
cene. The difficulty lies in adding real-time tr
points on the electronic map, it is necessary t
affic data and motion models of a large num
o ensure a considerable refresh frequency
ber of vehicles; from the perspective of simul
,
ation technology, the huge data calculation a
generally the calculation frequency of the simulation is used as the refresh rate of the
will bring diffi
lso makes the traditional The display design
display; ③ The data is bound to the freely moving vehicle, which
culties to realize the visual output of large-sc
mode cannot meet the graphics computing r
ale urban traffic simulation by distributing mu
esources required by the virtual reality syste
ltiple maps and multiple PCs . Therefore, unde
m. .
r the traditional display module data processi
urban traffic 3D visual simulation softwar
ng method, it is impossible to solve the confli
e architecture is designed that can run smoot
ct of hardware resource conflicts caused by t
hly on a common PC platform through a newl
he large-scale use of simulation computing a
y defined data communication and analysis
nd virtual reality technology by means of net
method. In the Demo program, we use the Pamnics
worked distributed processing.
simulation software for microscopic simulatio
However, in fact the output of the digital
n data support, and use the WTK software
simulation module is very rich. Generally spe
package under the VC environment to model a part o
aking, the following digital simulation standar
f the road and the surrounding environment i
d outputs can be obtained from the current m
n the city, and build an urban traffic with bran
ainstream microscopic urban traffic simulatio
d-new visual effects and strong interactive ca
n software [3] : information on vehicle travel o
pabilities Microscopic simulation platform.
n the network, such as total travel time, trave
The following chapters of this paper will
l distance, average speed; Event information
start with the introduction of the design of the
etc.; road section traffic data, including road
visual module of traditional traffic simulation
section traffic density, road section average
software, the simulation based on road secti
speed, travel time, etc.; error information in s
on information to the video data output forma
imulation; environmental emissions and fuel
t and its advantages, and the design case of
consumption, etc. From it, we can select new
the 3D visual display module supported by si
information sources, design new data transm
mulation data. Finally, The development and
ission formats, reduce the size of data, and r
application prospects of this platform are des
educe the frequency of data transmission.
cribed.
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3 Output format of simulation to video umber of vehicles, the number of road sectio
data based on road section information
and its ns should be at least small 1 to 2 orders of m
Advantage agnitude, and in the same simulation, the sc
On the basis of the traditional simulation ale of data is stable and easy to access; ②T
output module design, referring to the standa he frequency of data transmission is low, whi
rd data output of digital simulation, by changi ch is different from the free movement of veh
ng the simulated and displayed data from the icles. Because it is statistical information, the
vehicle's own information to the local traffic fl transmitted data has good continuity and sm
ow statistics of the road section, it can effecti ooth changes The advantage of being slow. I
vely solve the problem we discussed in the p n the Demo , we use the simulation time of 5 mi
revious part. Yes, the three shortcomings of t nutes as the time interval for sending data, a
raditional simulation to video data format des nd the effect is good; ③ After the data is bou
ign nd to the static road section, as long as the r
point. oad network initialization on the display side i
Different from the traditional vehicle infor s completed, the object of data sending is fix
mation that is large in scale, rapidly changing, ed. This creates good conditions for cutting l
and highly random, we propose to focus on t arge-scale city simulation maps, multi-termin
raffic flow information on road sections that a al or multi-window to achieve visual access.
re relatively stable, small in scale, smooth in In Table 2, we take the Demo platform as a
change curve, and stable in data structure. T n example and summarize two data formats
able 1 shows some data samples of a certain different styles.
Table 2 Comparison of two input formats of visual horiz
time period output by Pwamics in Demo . ontal blocks
Table 1 Paramics output data sample file Traditional video Improved video data
data input input
##Trip link Time count Data Format Vehicle Statistical
coordinates, sign information on road
1 -> 2 〇 tl 73.47 692 >information
500 k , varying traffic at
Stable flowaround 700
The scale of bytes
1 -> 2 1:2 109.97 573 data
As shown in Table 1, in Demo , we selecte transmitted
d the passing time of the road section, the tra each time in
transmission
frequency
Simulation step
time , 0.1 Simulation data
ffic density and the sign information of the ro seconds collection interval,
ad section itself as the input information of th simulation time 5
e display module. If more abundant informati Finally, from the perspective of data acq
on input is required, other road condition bin uisition convenience, the description informa
ding information in the output standard defini tion of the local road sections we selected (s
tion of the traffic simulation software describ uch as flow density, passing time, etc.) is wit
ed in the second part can also be used as th hin the standard data output range of traffic d
e input of the visual module, such as the traff ata simulation. The current mainstream simul
ic density of the road section, the average sp ation software can
eed of the road section, and the travel time;
The overall information of the road network,
such as vehicle size and travel time in the co
mmunity, can also be used as a reference.
Corresponding to the three major shortco
mings of the traditional data format in the sec
ond part, the data format we propose has ob
vious advantages in these three aspects: ①
The data scale is small, compared with the n
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Displays the block design. In the Demo software,
a certain urban community is taken as the exp
erimental object, and the construction mode
of Paramics - WTK is adopted . The number of
moving vehicles in the network is about
200,000 . On the computer, the frame rate co
图 3 Demo 软件十字路口车辆运行情况效果截图 mpleted by 1024 * 768 * 32 is greater than
25, and the operation is very smooth.
At present, both simulation technology a
nd virtual reality technology are developing r
apidly, and there are many softwares for buil
ding VR world , such as VRML markup langu
age suitable for building network 3D world ,
3D language package WTK suitable for VC , Java 3
D suitable for JAVA etc. In the modular simula
tion software platform we proposed, since th
e bottleneck of hardware constraints is clear
ed, these emerging technologies can be fully
applied to the display system, making the de
velopment more friendly, more interactive, a
nd more beautiful A real urban traffic simulat
ion environment; at the same time, the modu
lar structure has good compatibility and coex
istence with the existing simulation software.
Not only that, but with the improvement
Figure S Screenshot of Paramics vehicle chess effect
of the performance of the common PC platfor
A large number of interactive functions enric m, more microscopic simulation functions ca
h the means of using this platform. In the Demo n also be integrated into the display module,
window, the user can track the specified vehicl
such as more detailed event response modu
e at will, switch the driver's perspective and t les, special following modules for cycling an
he sky perspective to browse the virtual citys d so on.
cape, or specify a vehicle in the network to d In short, there is still a lot of
图 4 Paramics 城区效果截图
rive manually, etc. work to be done on this new sim
ulation software framework, and
5 Conclusion more developers are expected t
This paper elaborates a brand-new 3D vi o pay attention to the research in
sual simulation software framework of urban this area.
traffic, which is supported by data simulation
module, simplifies data communication, and references:
3D visual module displays high-quality real-ti [1] Wei Ming , Yang Fangting, Cao Zhengqing . Development
me traffic conditions. Introduces the new sim and research status of traffic simulation [J ].
ulation-to-display data format design and its Journal of System Simulation, 2003, 15(8) : 1179 - 1187.
[2] Jia Shunping . Framework of urban traffic simulation
advantages, and provides
software system based on vehicle microscopic behavio
r [J]. Journal of Northern Jiaotong University , 2002 ,
26(5):51 -56.
[3] Song Houbing, Cai Yuanli. A Review of Computer
Simulation Research on Traffic System Computer
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维普资讯
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Simulation [J]. 2004,21(3) : 101-104.
[4] R Herman, et al. Traffic Dynamics : Analysis of Stability in
Car - following[J]. Operations Research, 1959.
[5] Wilhelm Leutzbach. Introduction to the Theory of Traffic
Flow'[M]. Springer - Verlag, Berlin 1988. Adolf D. May, '
Traffic Flow Fundamentals % Prentice Hall Inc. 1990.
[About the Author]
M e i C a n (1980 -), male (Han nati
onality ), from Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, master st
udent, main research direction : traffic simulation and virt
ual reality.
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